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District 2-3A basketball selects Coach of the year

By Arnie Leshin 
He wished there had been a better ending to his season as St. Michael’s head boys basketball coach, but Dave Rodriguez did enough to have his team right in the midst of a 3-way District 2-3A race against Robertson and West Las Vegas that resulted in a playoff for first place.
From there, the three schools made their way into the state tournament and the 6th seeded Horsemen season ended with a 2-point loss to the 3rd seeded Albuquerque Bosque Charter School that became the eventual state championship.
But Rodriguez, who coached at neighborhood rival Santa Fe High before moving on to the same role at St. Michael’s, realizes he did a good job with a young team that was often out sized, and for this he was named District Coach of the Year.
Three of the spots on the All-District team went to Horsemen sophomores Devin Flores, Lucas Coriz and Derek Martinez, so Rodriguez can count on this trio for next season. Late in the campaign after 6-foot-2 senior starter Thomas Wood left the program because of personal reasons, it was these three and seniors Berkeley Reynolds, Rico Gurule and Ruben Salazar that kept the team going. It was a sophomore-senior mix that didn’t matter, for the four co-captains were Reynolds, Salazar, Flores and Coriz, two seniors and two sophomores.The team went 19-11 overall and won the district regular season.
“I owe it all to the team,” said Rodriguez, “the kids were great. They came to play, and Lucas was outstanding, had back-to-back double doubles, and he, Flores and Martinez have tremendous upsides. We also had seniors that played real well, and then there’s our JV that had another impressive season after winning two straight districts and losing in two overtimes this season to Robertson.”
Making the team from Santa Fe Indian School were seniors Shaun Riley and David Arquero. Santa Fe Prep got one player on the list, sophomore Finn Coles,and Player of the Year was Robertson’s 5-6 sophomore guard Matthew Gonzales, with senior teammates Julius Vaughn and Antonio Padilla, and junior Nicholas Marujo joining him. Gonzales and Padilla were the one-two punch for the Cardinals football team.
Gonzales was a scrappy two-way player who could score from outside, penetrate and engineer the offense while playing the type of defense that forces turnovers. Making the team from cross town rival West Las Vegas were 6-2 senior wing/power forward/center John Ballzan and 6-1 wing/guard junior D.J. Byron. From Raton there was 6-2 sophomore forward/center Matthew Quartieri, with two more years ahead of him.
NOTES: The St. Michael’s junior varsity went an impressive 15-4 and 3-2 in the district.The freshmen team was 2-2 overall. The varsity had six seniors, two juniors, four sophomores and two freshmen.
Indian School’s JV had a 2-6 overall mark and was 2-4 in district. Its freshmen played once and lost. The varsity roster had seven seniors, four juniors and one sophomore.
 As for the Griffins, they had a junior varsity that won eight of 17 overall and were 1-8 in district play. The varsity consisted of one senior, six juniors, three sophomores and two freshmen.

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